WACO is proud of its members for making the changes needed to allow guests to enjoy the camping experience through the pandemic. Despite these efforts, it’s possible a guest or employee will test positive for coronavirus or become ill with COVID-19. If that happens, we have a few suggestions for how to respond:
- Maintain a professional attitude, avoiding engagement in emotional responses. Your judgment and discipline are needed in moments of crisis. Your empathy should show as well, but it’s less critical than your rationality.
- Take care of today’s needs and leave the rest to later deliberations. There will be some who pressure you to accept responsibility for everything and agree to change your campground forever. The task before you is responding to the situation as it presents itself.
- Your job is to let the public health professionals in your County do their job. They need to know if there is a report of the contagion. They may have suggestions or even directives about the response. They have been given a large burden in dealing with the present crisis. Working with them makes their job that much easier and thereby enables cooperation that much more.
- Make sure you have the facts so that you can assure others confine their response to those facts. Lincoln once said “Truth is the best defense against slander.” It is also is the best response to rumor or innuendo.
- If changes are warranted by the facts, make the changes the facts warrant. Don’t start changing procedures or facilities to make people feel better. The goal is to achieve different results. If someone contracts Coronavirus from close contact with another camper, it makes no sense to start disinfecting the sidewalks.
- Ask for help if you need it. WACO has developed a great working relationship with the State Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you need to.
- When bad things happen that no one can control, it is certainly OK to express regret. But you have nothing to apologize for. If people press you to :apologize,” you are within your rights to decline if you have done nothing to apologize for. At the same time, Wisconsin has a law which allows you to apologize without admitting fault, so if you feel responsible, you can say you’re sorry.
- Keep going. The goal of all procedures is to carry on. Move on to the next challenge as soon as the issue is under control.